


It's A Mad World, After All

by SpaceUnicornDot



Category: Star Stable
Genre: F/M, More characters added as they get involved, SSO Wonderland AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 08:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15215342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceUnicornDot/pseuds/SpaceUnicornDot
Summary: A tale of Jorvik "through the Looking Glass!" Distressed by the loss of her father, a young girl seeks solace in nature, only to discover a fantastic destiny held just beyond a pink, flickering light... Pulled into an island world of magic and horses, it could be paradise, if not for the invading forces of darkness... Can Izzy and the residents of Jorvik save this wonderful land from the clutches of Pandoric madness?





	It's A Mad World, After All

**Author's Note:**

> By goodness, I said I was gonna write a Wonderland AU and here I am! This work is, of course, based in the lore of Star Stable Online and Starshine Legacy, and draws inspiration from the 2010 Alice in Wonderland film, as well as Alice: Madness Returns, a video game, and a light influence from the lore of Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria, a mobile app game, to mix and mingle with the lore of SSO. I will forewarn now that I have no posting or writing schedule for this, but I am very excited to work on this adventure! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did creating it. <3

Death, they say, is encoded as a biological inevitability. An end, some believe, is just the start of a new, beautiful beginning. But for all her love of poetic sayings and phrases plastered upon subtle aesthetics, Isabella Burnett could not stop her tears. Even when she thought there was none left to give, more welled up into her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks.

Her father might as well have been her  _everything._ All her life,  her family and their horses on the ranch had been her  _everything,_ just as it had been her father's. Perhaps some may have thought it lucky she still had her grandparents, but it also meant she wasn't the only one hurting. Parents outliving their children was no small pain, but neither was hers. They had been so much more than father and daughter; he had practically been her best friend.

She wanted it all to be a bad dream, to  _wake up_ and seek him out, where one of his ranch-worn hands would brush away her tears gently, he would tell her there was nothing to fear, and then pull her into the warm, safe embrace that only he could give her.

But it wasn't just a dream. Her father had been killed in a terrible accident, miles and miles away from their tiny, little paradise. He  _always_ came home. Her father going to shows was never supposed to be uncertain. It wasn't like it was  _dangerous_. Many of the horses on the ranch, they had raised and trained themselves, knew like they knew each other. They were a part of the family. To think a car crash would end all of it was just...

He wasn't supposed to  _not_ come home.

Today, she couldn't handle it. Not even going to see the horses had cheered her up, and she didn't want to talk about it, nor see the sad faces of her grandparents and the ranch hands if she tried to pretend things were okay, like her whole world hadn't changed.  _Everyone_ was basically family on this ranch, and she couldn't handle their pain on top of her own.

She usually would've wandered the trails with one of the several horses her and her father had trained together... Braveheart, especially, loved exploring the trails around their home. She could only imagine the worry of her grandparents when they noticed she was missing and for how long, but she just  _couldn't._

A breeze rustled gently through the treetops, a few birds sang in the nearby distance - all things she usually would've taken great joy in, but, today, all she could find in the quiet melody were memories, from the first time she could recall sitting on the back of a horse to the countless times her and her father had traveled this very path together...

She didn't know, and didn't particularly  _care_ to know, how long she had been walking when something finally pulled her from her own mind - a faint glimmer of...  _pink,_ almost like a sparkle, among the trees... Plenty of flowers could grow in the area, dappling the greens and browns of the trees and brush with their unique colors, but  _that_...

She stopped to look again. At first, it seemed it had disappeared, like it had only been a trick of her eyes, but, just a few moments later, it shimmered into view again. Her brow knitted and she gave a sniff, one hand coming up to brush over her eyes. Tears had stopped falling from them a while ago, but they still ached and felt tired. Maybe she  _was_ just seeing things.

But it was still there when she blinked them open again. Back and forth, like a little firefly, even though it was far too early for the appearance of such a creature, and fireflies were certainly not pink, in her experience. Uncertainly, she glanced over her shoulder. She was far from the stables now, and she didn't even have a horse with her. Her father had always taught her to respect a horse's instincts and judgement, as they could be far more sound than their own. She might have felt better with one around, even a skittish youth...

On another hand, it would be good to know if there was something dangerous along the trail. Then, at least, she could warn the others when she got back. It would add some sort of purpose to her wandering off.

_Curious..._ Slowly, Izzy stepped forward. Much to her surprise, the shimmering light grew stronger and more vivid the closer she drew. Now, instead of a single flicker, the light had transformed into a swirling circle, almost like... a  _portal._

Her heartbeat quickened inside her chest, but she couldn't seem to pull her eyes away. Something kept calling her forward until the light cast a gentle glow upon her, shining bright and almost  _pulsing_ with energy as she stood within reach.

Tentatively, she reached out to the light. Her fingers almost seemed to pass through it, and then something pulled, as if someone was grabbing onto her; a surprised yelp flew from her lips before everything went black.

Behind her, the swirling circle fell calmly in on itself, appearing more as a faint, pink tear in the air before blinking out entirely, leaving no trace of its existence behind.


End file.
